Highlighting local small business owners in the Perth Western Suburbs

This is the opening line from the tattooed, English (nay Mancunian!) accented barber who warmly greets you on arrival despite the other tasks he is busily running around doing after the last customer. He is not the owner, but he exudes everything you would expect from this excellent barber shop in Doubleview on Scarborough Beach Road, cleverly called Scarbra Barbra.

Kick back and relax with a refreshing Portuguese Cintra while having a great haircut

The owners are female, hence the “bra” part of the name, but before you get all hot and sweaty fellas, no they don’t parade around in their underwear while cutting hair! They have long been residents closer to Scarborough Beach with the original shop front been open a while now. But with the Scarborough Master Plan in full swing and not wanting to lose their loyal customer base, they have taken action by starting up a new venue ‘down the road’, so to speak. Time will tell, but this could be a clever move attracting the Innaloo and Doubleview catchment and when everything is finished down at Scarborough, who knows they may even stay.

So I begrudgingly decline the beer as I’ve got some riding on the treadly ahead of me. Its more difficult than you think for a bloke with 2 kids who doesn’t get out much to reject an offer for a quality imported European beer while chatting about the EPL and our favourite drinking holes.

“Been a while since your last haircut has it?” Yeah, get the whipper snipper out mate, your gonna earn that money…

But jokes aside, you can tell a quality barber when they do the little things, the over and aboves that make you feel special. Quality cut, not too short – tick. Shave the back of your neck – tick. Warm towel to clean up the scraggly bits of hair – tick. All for $25.

Tough choice, the hot towel shave is pretty awesome!

And when you find a good barber, I don’t know what it is but emotionally you feel attached to that place, its something built-in to us I feel. Perhaps sub-consciously you think that if you venture to someone else and get a bad haircut it will be weeks before it’s rectified! But I don’t need to worry, I’m sweet for at least another 4 weeks (maybe 8!) before I head back to one of the more enjoyable barbers in the Perth Western Suburbs.

But when is a pop-up not really a pop-up? It’s when they suck, basically.

The other day I popped in to one of these so -called “pop-ups”, at least that’s how the owner described it. He was selling fitness equipment in a, you know, pop-up shop format.

Great! What’s different, what’s new or funky, unique in here? What is relevant to me as a consumer walking past to make this a pop-up? How can I interact with whatever they are selling, which again makes this is a pop-up? What massive bargains can I pick up, after all it should be wildly different from your regular shop, right?

Wrong…let’s be frank about this, it was an outlet shop at best. There was some graffiti on the wall, which granted gives it more street cred, but the shop was offering the same products and the same pricing as the online and bricks and mortar stores.

So a pop-up isn’t really a pop-up when your just trying to flog the same shit in a different location; that’s generally called a “new store location”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pop-ups and they can add real charisma to a local scene, in particular with the plethora of pop-up bars and restaurants that are embracing the concept. But with a bar or restaurant they are likely to be forced into changing their offering as their supplies and bar/kitchen setup are quite limited. Perfect! Smash out a simple negroni rather than that cocktail that needs 3 different homemade syrups. Serve up a fried chicken bao instead of that michelin starred dish with microherb garnish.

And to finish with some constructive feedback rather than simply a keyword warrior, here are 17 Pop-Up Store Success Stories You Can Learn From. So go forth and create that pop-up, but please create a unique and relevancy around the offering, otherwise we will just call it an “outlet store”.